Mourning has broken

0 Paul Sneddon and Keir Mcallister offer very funny twists

easily goaded into delivering well-observed rants about his right to sit wherever he wants, while Sandy (fellow comedian Paul Sneddon) makes a list of an ever-growing list of “hate crimes” he

believes Joe has committed against him.

Both men are unreasonable, uncompromising and, it feels, are destined to go on a shared journey of selfdiscovery. And so their battle begins, but just when it feels it’s got nowhere else to go apart from reminiscing about the past, a series of very funny twists turn the story on its head.

As the memorial bench turns into a memorial to a memorial bench, Mcallister sends up the paraphernalia of grieving, but also what we might expect from an older, condescending male character in a tweed hat and body warmer.

The piece ends too suddenly and it feels like there’s still more to say about what happens next to Joe and Sandy. The comedy has some inspired moments, but also allows the writing to swerve deeper emotions. However, when Sandy crosses out some of the abuse he’s written about Joe, it feels like the seeds of the unlikely friendship we’re all hoping for have finally been planted.

SALLY STOTT

Until 26 August. Today 2:15pm.

Some people are walking out, others are laughing like they’re on drugs, and I’m beginning to wonder if anyone in this show isn’t an audience plant, even myself, because this is the kind of piece that would really suit having a someone sitting in an aisle seat, writing in a notebook.

In comedian Stuart Laws’s show-within-a-show – or maybe it’s all real, in which case it’s a show-thatno-longer-exists – two performers (Will Brown and Phoebe Sparrow) put on a play about a romantic relationship that falls apart in outer space, as their professional relationship falls apart on stage.

At the start, “writer/ performer” Brown wryly dissects theatrical tropes, including on-the-nose Fringe shows that call themselves things like The Journey. The self-referential humour is gradually replaced by overly earnest dialogue, which, it later becomes transparent, is deliberate. This is brave, but at times risks the piece becoming the thing it’s parodying.

In the final scene, wannabe woke men who attempt to rewrite their relationships with women through their scripts are sent up in a way that raises a whole series of new issues.

But there’s not time to fully explore these before the house lights come up and, like a dying planet, the piece gloriously implodes. SALLY STOTT

Until 27 August. Today 5:40pm.